


Sing Sing Prison Blues

by writingmonsters



Category: The Alienist (TV), The Alienist - Caleb Carr
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Laszlo Just Needs a Hug Okay?, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Takes Place After Visiting Jesse Pomeroy, You Hear Me Writers?, give them hugs, so does john
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-16
Updated: 2018-06-16
Packaged: 2019-05-24 06:46:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14949639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writingmonsters/pseuds/writingmonsters
Summary: Their conversation with Jesse Pomeroy, cut short by the appearance of the home-made shiv, leaves Laszlo more rattled than he would like to acknowledge. John keeps him steady.





	Sing Sing Prison Blues

He sees it all in such sharp relief, and the only thing he can do is observe in horror from the sidelines and wrench a cry for help from his frozen lips. " _Guards_!"

The heavy chains rattle. Kreizler's back hits the wall. The shank – like a magic trick – appears and disappears, glinting silver in the wan sunlight. And every fiber of John Moore's being seizes at the pass of the raw blade so close to Laszlo's cheek.

" _Guards_!"

And then the world moves again in a rush of uniformed bodies and bully clubs striking flesh. Pomeroy moaning and howling. Laszlo lurches from the wall, his limbs stiff and mouth agape, and John almost misses the way trembling fingers trace the ghost of the weapon’s path along his soft cheek.

"Come, John." Unseeing, dark eyes skim from the door to the writhing tumult of violence to John and back again. "There is nothing more for us to learn here." And he turns smartly on his bootheel and is gone, leaving John behind with the aftermath of viciousness and carnage in the wake of his fluttering coattails.

John stutters, stumbles – a skipped note in a scratched record – and chases after him.

The rows of pleading, clamoring inmates are a blur. John is only aware of the haste in Kreizler's footfalls, the way his shoulders rise around his ears. The hollow slam of heavy doors chases them out of the damp labyrinth and into the vestibule. Everything seems faint and faded, the smell of mildew and filth still lingering around the edges, a strange unreality when John blinks in the grey sunlight through the thick, plate glass windows.

Laszlo does not slow his pace.

"Kreizler." There is not even a twitch to indicate he's heard him. "Kreizler, stop!"

And he does. One hand on the door, Laszlo is struck still as stone by the command, shoulders drawn and his compact body tight. Even before he has crossed the yards between them, John can feel the tension vibrating in him, barely suppressed – has seen this, rarely, before in their long history together.

He reaches, the warm flat of his palm seeking the expanse between Kreizler's shoulder blades; to ask, to comfort, to ease…

"We're going to be late for the train, John."

Laszlo pushes through the door and out into the courtyard.

Bounding after him, John calls " _Laszlo_ " and watches as that dark, sturdy figure stutters to a halt once more, waiting with head bowed.

The sky is grey overhead, washed colorless by the sunlight distilled through cloud-cover. It stretches their shadows back toward the asylum, distorted silhouettes of men fallen backward across the cobbles. John squints briefly up at the sun, feeling scrubbed raw beneath it, and then closes the distance between the alienist and himself.

"Laszlo," John says again, helpless. And he finds himself drawing up short, grasping for the words, the right approach as he turns his full attention on the still, tightly-wound figure of Laszlo Kreizler at his elbow.

"Yes, John." That voice is dangerous. Impatient. Softly lilting, remarkably composed. Laszlo seems composed of steel crossbeams beneath his suit coat; rigid, unwilling to turn.

His shoulders beneath John's fingers, though, are still soft, still made of flesh that yields to the press of fingertips. Smoothing his thumbs up and over the caps of Laszlo's stiff shoulders, John turns him about gently until they are toe-to-toe. Kreizler's movements are slow – the unsteady shuffle of an automaton – his dark eyes never leaving the pavement.

"Were you hurt?" John skims his hands across Laszlo's shoulders, down his lapels. This close, he smells the tang of cologne and hair oil, watches the unhappy little furrow grow deeper between those serious brows. "He didn't catch you with that blade, did he?"

Laszlo's jaw twitches, head jerking to the side. "I am… unharmed."

Still, though, something in his carefully cultured voice slips. A hitch in the shallow breaths, catching behind his breastbone, that come too quickly. And John stills the searching of his hands, finding no wound – only the fine, faint tremors that shudder through Laszlo beneath the façade of his heavy wool suit.

Oh. John squeezes his shoulders – a gentle pressure – making a soothing noise. Laszlo shrugs to throw him off, the line between his eyebrow grown deeper, more petulant.

Damn the man.

When John speaks, his voice is uneasy in his own throat; the words are badly formed, the cadence ragged and cracked. He dips his head to try and catch the alienist's eye. "Look at me, then, Kreizler."

Laszlo gives a single, abortive shake of his head, lips tightly pursed.

With Sing Sing Prison looming behind them, John cups the boyish curve of Laszlo's cheek, the neat crop of beard soft beneath his palm. Kreizler is tightly knotted, sharp-edged, and John thinks – just for a moment – that he might shatter into a million vicious shards beneath his touch. Might turn his head in a flash of teeth and _bite_ John for the presumption.

But Laszlo remains perfectly still, shoulders drawn up around his ears, when John dips his fingers beneath that serious chin – catching the beard bristles against his fingertips – and tilts Laszlo's face up to meet his own.

And John has seen him furious. Has watched Laszlo in a rage, worked into a tirade of flashing eyes and frothing words. He has seen Laszlo melancholic; silent and bellicose, a dour mouth hidden beneath his moustache and hints of quiet wounds covered up in his bright eyes. He has seen Laszlo through a whole host of miserable, bitter, brutal moods. But never so discomfited; he had not thought the man had it in him to be knocked off his guard by anything, much less by one of the madmen whose minds he professed to know so well.

The soft face is blanched pale – stricken – and Laszlo risks a look at John before his eyes quickly dart away again, all knotted up anxious eyebrows, a sheen of panic to his eyes. He has begun to sweat, a loose flop of hair curling down across his forehead.

This is Kreizler distraught. Disheveled.

John sighs. " _Oh_ , Laszlo."

At his sides, Laszlo's hands ball themselves into white-knuckled fists, the bones of his fingers creaking beneath the strain. He risks another glancing, furious look. "What?" The word snarls out of him on a burst of spittle. "What do you _want_ , John?" And there is such loathing in that dear face, such bitterness twisting the man up inside. Laszlo's eyes spark. "Does it please you to know that I was frightened? To see my hubris undermined?"

John sways, knocked back onto his heels by the vehemence in his friend's words. "It does nothing of the sort, Laszlo," he protests, offended. "Though, it does reassure me to see proof of the human nature I know you to possess."

Laszlo scoffs, a wet sound.

Impatient, John insists "Laszlo, there is no shame in being discomposed by having a murderer – lunatic or no – wave a knife in your face." And he allows himself a brief, tender squeeze to the nape of Laszlo's bowed neck, smoothing over the short, curling hair there, before he steps away to the edge of the pavement. "Let me get us a cab and we'll be away from this place. Then you can settle your nerves."

Perhaps it is heavy-handed of him, that when the hansom rattles to a stop beside the curb he hands Laszlo up into the cab, guiding him into the seat the way he would any young society date. But Kreizler does not protest, just offers up their destination to the driver and settles into fidgeting, uneasy silence beside John as they rattle away from the prison.

John risks a glance at his compatriot whose eyes are still over-bright and distant, and then a second longer look. This time, though, he says nothing. The dark eyes flicker up to his face, settle on his temple, and then skim away again.

"I have encountered any number of physical and emotional assaults upon my person," Laszlo muses through tight lips. "Particularly from patients who seek to assert some power in a situation where they feel they have none. Usually…" He hesitates. Swallows. "I do not usually let it affect me like this."

In the enclosure of the hansom's covered cab, John settles back against the seat and stretches one arm comfortably around Laszlo's hunched shoulders, drawing him in close. The alienist comes willingly enough; a warm, sure weight against his side. John splays his long artist's fingers along the curve of Laszlo's skull, pressing a chaste, soothing kiss to his temple.

"It's the damned case, Laszlo," John mutters into his hair. "It's enough to leave anyone rattled – even you."

"Perhaps." Laszlo settles against him. "I was… already uneasy. This outburst was just the – shall we say, the tipping point on the scale." His hands still tremble, folded in his lap. "Jesse behaved toward me in much the way our killer does toward his victims – don't you think?" He muses aloud, speaking quickly in an effort to muddy the waters, keep John preoccupied with solutions and connections. "The projecting of the insecurities over his own deformities, the outburst of violence and threats, the language that he used…"

John musses his fingers in Kreizler's hair, a gentle admonishment. "No theories, Laszlo," he murmurs, watching the grey wash of the city streets clatter past around the edge of the hansom's bonnet. "Not right now."

"Very well." Laszlo shuffles against his side, lets out a shuddering sigh.

Later, when Sara brings him the revelation that Laszlo's right arm had not always been withered and crooked – the anguished confession of violence and bones snapped like green twigs – John will remember the cell in Sing Sing. Laszlo's tremors and uneasy eyes and drawn-tight shoulders. The alienist has trained them all too well, he will think, remembering these things and drawing them to their obvious conclusions. The Mama and Papi spoken of so sparingly…

He will never ask Laszlo, of course. Will never force him to confirm or deny it.

_"Did your father hurt you?"_

_"Were you threatened as a child?"_

Laszlo will know that Sara has told John the truth of his history. But he will not say a word. And he will pretend not to notice all the ways in which John, for several days after, will be kind and carefully tender to him.

In the hansom, rattling away from Sing Sing, a mist begins to grow heavy in the air. Laszlo gives a single, full-bodied shiver. John holds him tighter.


End file.
